Reports from Pyongyang said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent a wreath to the Cuban Embassy and that a delegation of senior North Korean officials has left for Havana to attend Castro's memorial services.

According to a Japanese agency that monitors North Korean media, Castro is the first foreign political figure to be honored in such a manner since Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004.

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Besides flying flags at half-staff, it was not immediately clear what the mourning period, which ends on Wednesday, would entail.

Shortly after receiving news of Castro's death, Kim Yong Nam, head of the North's parliament, and Premier Pak Pong Ju sent a message of condolence to Castro's brother Raul, who assumed power after Fidel became too weak to continue as leader in 2008.

Because of their common enmity toward the United States and similar authoritarian power structures, Cuba and North Korea had maintained very close diplomatic ties throughout the years. The two countries established ties in 1960 and Castro visited the North in 1986 to meet with Kim Il Sung, the country's founder and Kim Jong Un's grandfather.

Such fraternal sentiment toward Havana and Raul Castro, however, appears to have dimmed in Pyongyang amid a rapprochement between Cuba and the U.S., who agreed to normalize ties in 2014.